Nikkei edges up as investors buy on the dips; Panasonic soars on investment plan

* Nikkei has been flat this week
* Panasonic soars to the highest since Nov 2008
* Toshiba tumbles after SanDisk cut outlook
By Ayai Tomisawa
TOKYO, March 27 (Reuters) - Japan's Nikkei share average
edged up on Friday morning in choppy trade as investors bought
stocks on the dips after the previous day's falls, while
Panasonic Corp attracted buying after it announced an
acquisition plan.
The Nikkei benchmark rose 0.4 percent to 19,548.48
in mid-morning trade, after diving 1.4 percent on Thursday, the
biggest daily drop in 10 weeks. It also slipped from its 15-year
high of 19,778.60 hit on Monday.
It has been flat for the week.
Analysts said profit-taking was natural as the Nikkei has
hovering at 15-year highs recently.
"When the benchmark falls 300-400 points from its peak, the
market is comfortable with buying back," said Hikaru Sato, a
senior technical analyst at Daiwa Securities.
He added that views on the Japanese market remained positive
based on hopes of buying by Japanese pension funds including the
Government Pension Investment Fund as well as expectations for
better shareholder returns and rosy corporate earnings.
Panasonic jumped 5.7 percent to 1,614 yen, the
highest since November 2008 after it said it was ready to spend
1 trillion yen ($8.4 billion) on acquisitions over the next four
years.
Other exporters were mixed, with Toyota Motor Corp
falling 0.6 percent, Honda Motor Co was flat and Sony
Corp rising 1.9 percent.
Bucking the trend, Toshiba Corp dropped 3.5 percent
after SanDisk Corp cut its revenue outlook and its
shares tumbled 18.4 percent overnight. SanDisk buys wafers for
its NAND chips from a joint venture with Toshiba.
Japan's consumer inflation data out earlier in the day had
little impact to the stock market. The headline core CPI, which
includes oil but excludes volatile fresh food prices, rose 2.0
percent on-year in February, short of a median forecast for a
2.1 percent rise, government data showed.
The broader Topix rose 0.3 percent to 1,573.55 and
the JPX-Nikkei Index 400 added 0.3 percent to
14,316.31.
(Editing by Eric Meijer)